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David Campos for assembly, Wendy Aragon for City College board, soda, Muni money and the anti-speculation tax round out a controversial list of election 2014 ENDORSEMENTS. Plus: Yarrr, it's the Treasure Island Music Fest! And a new book collects George Kuchar's shouts and murmurs. Articles Online | Digital Edition

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In today's episode, we discuss why Abama is not FDR, why he's refusing to do what has to be done to put Americans to work -- and why that's his real political liability. Listen after the jump. Read more »

If you want a case study that illustrates why San Francisco needs Proposition M, taken a look at Bernal Heights.

In 2008, two people were killed at the Alemany public housing project, topping off a disturbing increase in street crime. Neighborhood activists responded by working successfully with the captain of the Ingleside Station to a beat cop on Cortland Ave. Crime dropped.

But several weeks ago, Captain Louis Cassanego cut that foot patrol, citing the need to reallocate scarce SFPD manpower to more violent areas. Read more »

Sups. John Avalos, Sophie Maxwell, David Campos and Board President David Chiu, plus community advocates, construction contractors, neighborhood leaders and union members rallied outside City Hall today to announce the launch of LOCAL SF, a campaign for local opportunities and hiring for San Francisco residents.

And this afternoon, Avalos introduces the first measure of this campaign--legislation mandating local hiring on publicly funded construction projects. Read more »

When I interviewed director Kelly Reichardt at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival about her gut-wrenching masterpiece Wendy & Lucy (2008), she spoke of watching many old Westerns in preparation for her next project. She delivered the exquisite Meek's Cutoff at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. The film follows three families as they make their trek along the Oregon Trail circa 1845. As they follow their hired mountain man through the Cascade Mountains they start to question if their leader really knows where he is leading them. And when they come across a Cayuse American Indian, the emigrants are forced to question who to trust. While Wendy & Lucy seemed inspired by the Italian Neo-Realists Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, Meek's Cutoff draws upon cinema's earliest documentaries, like Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922).

Collaborator Jon Raymond, who also wrote Reichardt's Old Joy (2006) and Wendy & Lucy, uncovered the infamous story of Meek's Cutoff while doing local research in Oregon. The tale seems perfect for Reichardt's distinctive visual storytelling by exploring humble characters who are confronting everyday troubles while taking a journey outside of their natural habitat. The striking style strips down her character's actions and allows the viewer to feel the weight of each procedure. Since Reichardt emphasizes her camera over dialogue, the solitary result can culminate in a truly transcendental experience for a viewer, while for others (like at the press screening in Toronto) a long nap. Somehow the fact that a film can evoke such extreme yet internal reactions conjures up the cinema of Yasujiro Ozu and most recently, Claire Denis. Read more »

Perhaps you've seen them around town. The neon pink fliers announcing that SF's most gloriously trashy tradition, the Exotic Erotic Ball and Expo, beckons saucily to you this weekend (Fri/22 and Sat/23). Were you curious about the providence of the posters' graphic design, this just in from founder-behatted cartoon character Perry Mann: “we're very aware that it's breast cancer month.”

Well that would explain all the boob examiners! 2010 marks Mann's 31st year of organized orgy, which nowadays draws in around 10,000 gawkers and pervs a year for onstage sex shows by world famous porn performers, elaborate fetish costuming, ribald entertainment (“we've got... orgasmic bingo? I don't know what that is,” Mann admits to me on the phone), and surprisingly serious musical guests. Sort of. This year is the Family Stone, minus Sly. “We reached out to Sly,” Mann tells me. “If he can get off his crack pipe, he'll show.” Read more »

Did you know that you have until midnight today to register to vote? That you have until next Tuesday (Oct. 26) to request a vote-by-mail ballot?And that you have until election night, which falls on November 2, Day of the Dead, to actually vote?

If you are not sure if you are eligible to vote, check the rules here. And then download a voter registration form here. Read more »

Eff Arizona's SB 1070! Maybe what this country needs is a little more immigrant punk to infuse some surly into the debate over who can hang with us in the land of the free and home of the brave. Gogol Bordello would be a good option: the gypsy rockers mainly hail from Eastern Europe, but their carnival of sound doesn't break for badges. SFBG shutterbug Charles Russo was on hand last week to capture their nomadic fanfare.

After crashing the country's economy and turning the world against us, Republicans are clawing their way back into power by stoking voter anger at political and economic systems that are stacked against the common citizen, a tactic that progressives need to adopt if we ever hope to move our agenda forward.

Court writes that progressives are rightfully disappointed and disillusioned that after helping to elect President Barack Obama, he and Congressional Democrats turned around and gave Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and the health insurance companies everything they wanted, with Obama even caving in on requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance, something he opposed as a candidate.

In an age of endless crossover between most conceivable forms of music, it's but small surprise that a Caucasian man from Virginia is making blues with West African witch doctors. What rarely gets discussed in these cross-ocean collaborations is the social aspect of the fusion. What did the artists eat for lunch the day they recorded that track? In what language was the “and-a-one” that started off the first take?

We had the opportunity to chat over the phone with Bay Area artist Markus James, who has parlayed his time with Malian string musicians into elemental blues tracks. You can hear them on both his new album, Snakeskin Violin, and at his live show (at the Ashkenaz, Fri/22) with The Wassonrai, who are West African musicians that rep for jam band track longevity – strains of which James says is indigenous everywhere from Mali to Jackson, Mississippi -- into their already formidable blend of blues past and present. James said (and we're paraphrasing here) that the secret to fusion collaborations all lies in your location-resonation, but that's just his perspective. Read more »